With the wholesale channel increasingly challenging, Victor Weinsanto is fanning his burgeoning direct-to-consumer business, which is why he accepted an invitation to show his zesty, theatrical clothes at the International Fashion Festival in Porto Montenegro over the weekend.

“It’s good exposure,” he said the morning after his Friday show, staged at the Dom Vojske Auditorium before hundreds of guests. “It’s a good way to understand a market, to meet new people and gain a better understanding of who might be interested in the brand.”

Organizers hooked him up with the Twenty Two Concept Store, which displayed some Weinsanto showpieces in its windows along with a QR code connecting interested parties directly with the French designer’s VIP sales rep.

The designer is crossing fingers that the multibrand boutique might place an order this fall when it moves to a larger, high-profile location smack in front of Porto Montenegro’s famous marina, chockablock with super yachts.

But he’s mainly focused on his made-to-order and couture business, which now accounts for more than half of his revenues — and the lion’s share of his personal satisfaction.

“It’s more interesting for us to develop right now,” he related in an interview. “I really like working with these women because they’re truly interested in supporting young designers, and this is what I like.”

He noted that one of his biggest champions is also the number-one client of Schiaparelli, “and I absolutely love her. For us, it’s nice because we can develop and create designs exactly as they want.”

Most of his DTC clients hail from the U.S., Australia and the Middle East, he noted. The designer, who launched his label in 2020, is on the official Paris Fashion Week calendar, but also shows regularly in Dubai, and occasionally in Milan.

Meanwhile, the two-day festival in Montenegro, considered a highlight of the summer season in the upscale resort destination, spanned cocktail parties, runway shows and after parties, along with boating excursions, fine dining and beach-club moments for VIP attendees.

“It’s like Monaco, but in the Balkans,” said Weinsanto, who relished how women dressed to the nines for all the events, favoring leggy, body-skimming dresses, metallic heels and demonstrative accessories.

It was the second year that Italian fashion editor and sustainability advocate Sara Sozzani Maino acted as honorary president of the festival, with an assist from Italian fashion consultant Giorgia Virzì, chief consultant for its eighth edition in Porto Montenegro, which is prized for its luxurious hotels like the Regent, stunning azure waters and welcoming locals.

Maino and Virzì prefaced Weinsanto’s runway show with emerging talent Liwen Liang, who makes handbags and dresses decorated with thin tiles of ceramic, inspired by his family’s business in Jingdezhen, China, a stronghold of porcelain-making for centuries.

For the IFF showing, Liang took inspiration from the Terracotta Army in Xi’an, China, also employing a great deal of palm-tree bark, which has been used for centuries to create waterproof capes for farmers, fishers and laborers in southern China. Backed by Max Richter’s mournful “On the Nature of Daylight,” it was an avant-garde, downbeat display.

Organizers also hooked up Liang with Tamara Vojvodić, owner of the Gayo Gallery, who hosted a cocktail party wearing a pencil skirt fronted in blue-and-white ceramic tiles.

“I’m happy to present in her gallery because it’s positioning the garments as art pieces, so I’m very grateful for that,” he said. “As you can see, my collection is not commercial at all.…I would say I’m still building my vision.”

But Liang is also inching toward more commercial designs, having secured an order from Joseph in London for metal-framed ceramic handbags, and support from Richemont’s AZ Academy, which is helping him and five other emerging designers produce commercial capsule collections for a one-month retail pop-up that will debut during Paris Fashion Week this fall.

Roman couturier Antonio Grimaldi headlined Saturday night’s show, and was the biggest crowd pleaser, receiving bursts of applause for his austere, sculptural designs enlivened with dense, metallic embroideries.

It was the first runway showcase for his nascent ready-to-wear line, introduced last year, alongside his haute couture designs — and his second time participating in the festival.

“I’m in love with with this place, and I’m in love with Vesna [Mandić],” he said, referring to the owner of the Belgrade-based agency Fabrika, the force behind the IFF. “So when I’m invited, I’m always very happy to come here.”

He marveled how quickly Porto Montenegro has developed, yet it remains relatively undiscovered, not yet marred by the tourist hordes that have soured places like Capri and Positano in Italy.

“All the girls here look like models. They are nice people — tall, thin, elegant,” he marveled. “They smile. They take care of you. They are very kind.”

Grimaldi said he hopes to sell his rtw to multibrand boutiques in the region, adding to his current compliment of 25 retailers worldwide.

He plans to present his spring 2027 collection in a showroom during Paris Fashion Week this fall.